‘I don’t start with a colour order but find the colours as I go.’ (Helen Frankenthaler)
I like to play with the juxtaposition of the simple and the complex in my gestures and actions, and I particularly align with Helen Frankenthaler’s sentiment that accidents and chance in painting should be embraced. Yet these unplanned encounters need to be carefully balanced with a sense of control and resolution, and through this process of losing and finding, the painting at a certain point will often determine itself.
The Stripes series has been an ongoing project of mine for the last few years. Using a soft brush with watercolour and ink on aquarelle paper I look for a process of overlaying to both obscure and reveal. Although seemingly abstract, the forms created could also suggest a curtain or a veil evoking a space beyond. Whilst the scale of the work is small, the gestures and the interaction of colour in the interplay of the varying brush strokes accumulate meaning and power, and even within a minimal set of painterly structures, there are no limits to what can happen.
